Nutritional evaluation of the sesame seed paste (<em>Sesamum indicum L</em>.) as replacement of the soybean paste in the growth of Common Quail (<em>Coturnix coturnix</em>)

In order to assess the feasibility of using sesame seed paste as a partial substitute for soybean meal in quail rations, an experiment was conducted to test four treatments in one-day-old birds: treatment 1: Control diet (0% sesame paste); treatment 2: diet with 25% substitution of soybean meal by sesame paste ; treatment 3: 50% substitution of soybean meal by sesame past, and treatment 4: 75% substitution of soybean meal by sesame paste. Four groups of 50 birds each were formed to receive one of the four diets offered ad libitum in equal amounts during 5 consecutive weeks. Using a complete randomized experimental design with factorial arrangement (4x5 four treatments and five weeks), four variables were evaluated: feed intake, live weight gain, feed conversion ratio and mortality. Treatment 4 diet was the least consumed throughout the experiment, while treatment 2 diet recorded the highest weekly average consumption per bird, both significantly different from the others (P &lt;.01). Animal weight gain was significantly lower in treatment 4 birds and significantly higher in birds of treatment 1 (P &lt;.01), so feed conversion ratio of treatment 4 turned out to be the highest and, therefore, the least efficient (P &lt;.05) since it required the greatest amount of food to convert it into live weight; conversion ratio of control diet, was significantly lower than that of treatments 3 and 4 but not different from ratio obtained in treatment 2, showing that sesame paste content reduces feed conversion when substitution levels of soybean meal rise higher than 25%.The mortality of the birds was somewhat higher than normal and it was not influenced by the level of sesame paste, since the loss of birds was similar in all groups.Deficiency of lysine in diets containing sesame paste could account for the lower performance of quails fed these diets.